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Agile Marketing | Overview and 8 Reasons to Adopt It in 2020

Marketing responsibilities and methodologies have changed drastically in the past decade.

It’s no longer logical or affordable for brands to create 12-month marketing plans to be reviewed annually. In the ever-changing digital space, a single Google update can pull the carpet right out from under your feet. While traditional marketing places the producers and their sales cycle at the center of the business, agile marketing prioritizes the customers and their buying process instead.

Agile marketing is quickly gaining momentum, as 98% of organizations report experiencing success with agile projects.

Understanding agile marketing

Inspired by the term agile software development, agile marketing is a marketing strategy wherein teams work collectively and collaboratively to accomplish projects within a short, definitive time period. Team members track the results of their efforts, and continuously strive to iterate and improve over time. Agile marketing values:

Responding to change over following a plan
Rapid iterations over long-term campaigns
Testing and data over assumptions and opinions
Numerous small experiments over standalone bets
Collaboration and transparency over silos and hierarchy

Features of agile marketing

The most commonly known aspects of agile marketing include:

Sprints – time given to the team for project completion. Generally, it ranges from fifteen days to six weeks; however larger projects are often grouped into several achievable sprints that can be easily managed.
Stand-up meetings – 15-minute check-ins with the whole team to briefly discuss work from the previous day, in addition to plans for that day. Any hiccups are addressed and resolved as quickly as possible to ensure timely project completion.
Project progress tracker – project management tools, like ActiveCollab and Trello, to help efficiently maintain a record of each sprint. Not a fan of using software? A whiteboard with sticky notes will also suffice.
Teamwork – a well-oiled team improves project completion rate and time. In closed teams, personal wins become collaborative successes, while also allowing individuals to improve and learn new skills.

Traditional vs. agile marketing

Traditional marketing often fails to adapt quickly enough to the rapid evolution of marketing trends and constant change in customer needs. And when you witness a poor click-through rate, experience customer backlash, or communicate a product recall- every second counts. Agile marketing aims to increase campaign transparency, speed, and adaptability in an age of buyer-persona based marketing. This necessity for a quick response time is where agile marketing proves king.

Benefits of agile marketing

Below are ways in which agile marketing increases employee productivity, conversions, and ultimately sales. Check out 8 reasons why you should adopt it in 2020:

Enables Better Internal Communication

One of the biggest reasons businesses should opt for agile marketing is because it transforms communication within the marketing team. Daily scrum meetings ensure every team member knows what the other is working on, and any challenges that may arise are immediately resolved.

Enhances Productivity

Marketers who choose agile marketing experience increased productivity. The term ‘productivity’ refers to projects and user stories completed, points scored, and results. As every marketing task warrants a different level of effort, teams assign value points according to the level of work required to complete each story. Visitors to a site, return visitors, bounce rate, trials, and sales are all metrics to be considered. No matter what you measure, the objective should always be enhanced productivity and velocity of the marketing team.

Imparts Competitive Boost

Improving the productivity of marketing and adopting a customer-centric method boosts the overall competitiveness of the business and increases customer satisfaction. Timely delivery of projects results in faster time-to-market, which in turn drives better ROI and explosive business growth.

Mitigates Marketing Costs

Agile marketing is a cost-effective solution that helps businesses yield long-term results from their marketing efforts. It enables companies to efficiently and effectively increase their reach to a larger audience without any exorbitant investment in multiple solutions.

Ensures Employee Satisfaction

Happy marketers exhibit better productivity. According to a survey, agile marketers are more satisfied with their work management approach when compared to others.

This is because agile marketers have a better ability to prioritize their tasks and accelerate the delivery of projects. When visibility, communication, and coordination improves amongst teams, morale does too. It’s, therefore, no surprise that an increase in the quality of work and employee satisfaction go hand in hand.

Facilitates Transparency

Agile marketing provides clear insights into projects being delivered by the marketing department. Sprint review meetings allow management to give constructive feedback, which subsequently leads to better results. It also affords team members the opportunity to bring up tangible contributions they’ve made, and be acknowledged for their hard work. Transparency, however, is not simply limited to team members, but also requires marketing to work closely with their customers to provide honest services to them.

Allows Measurement of Results

Measurement and accountability are the fundamentals of agile marketing. Agile marketing teams typically execute small tests to measure results. Based on these findings, they invest more time into strategies that prove to be working, and less time into those that don’t. Additionally, it enables marketers to effectively communicate their contributions to management using data and metrics

Makes work fun

Agile marketing provides an open atmosphere to discuss projects, challenges and achievements, as well as an opportunity to better know your teammates. Daily standup meetings mean you’re always looped in on what others are working on, which in turn leads to a more cohesive, empathetic, and accountable team environment. One of the biggest assets of agile teams is the inherent nature of collaboration and self-management.

Wrapping Up

Agile marketing methodologies enable teams to stay up to date with trends and understand what customers want in real-time. It allows marketing teams to get an idea or product in front of customers in a short amount of time, with a smaller budget and less risk. Success in today’s ever-evolving digital space depends on getting the right message in front of the right audience at exactly the right time, a feat made possible with agile marketing.

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